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CONTAP-762124: ONTAP Select Nodes May Reboot During Upstream Network Switch Maintenance Due to vmxnet3 Receive Buffer Limitations and Packet Loss

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Issue

  • Customer encountered unexpected reboots of multiple ONTAP Select nodes during planned upstream data switch maintenance.
  • Investigation identified significant packet loss and dropped packets observed through vCenter/vRealize on Vmxnet3 virtual NICs.
  • Broadcom analysis indicate high network ring buffer utilization and running out of buffers conditions.
  • Broadcom recommends increasing vmxnet3 ring buffer values to 4096 at the VM OS level using:

ethtool -G <interface> rx 4096 rx-jumbo 4096 rx-mini 2048 tx 4096
  • The boot argument used to modify the RX ring buffer size is:

hw.vmx.rxndesc
  • With the current ONTAP implementation and vmxnet3 driver behavior, the maximum supported RX ring buffer value that can be configured is 2048.

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